though lighted by a dome in the centre, required, in the deep darkness
of a London fog, the additional aid of lamps, were extended some five
and twenty human corpses in different stages of dissection. Groups of
students were silently engaged with their scalpels in examining these
wonderful temples of the still more wonderful human soul. Here a solitary
individual, with his book open before him upon the corpse, followed the
text upon the human subject, while there, two or three together were
tracing with patient distinctness the course of the disease which had
driven the spirit of life from its frail habitation. I observed one
of the professors in his gold spectacles pointing out to a number of
the students, gathered around one of the subjects, the evidences of an
ossification of the great aorta, which had, after years of torture,
necessarily terminated the life of the sufferer.—There was almost as
much individuality in those corpses as if they had been living, and it
required the most determined effort on my part to divest myself of the
idea that they were sentient, and aware of all that was passing around
them. I recollect, particularly, one, which was lying nearest the door
as I entered;—it was the body of a man of about forty, with light hair,
and fair complexion, who had been cut down in the midst of health.
His face was as full, and his skin as white, as if he had been merely
sleeping; but the knife had passed around his throat, down his body, and
then in sections cross-ways; the internal muscles having been evidently
exposed, and the skin temporarily replaced, during the casual absence of
the dissector. There was something peculiarly horrid in the appearance
of that corpse, as, aside from a ruffianly and dissolute expression of
the features, the gash around his throat conveyed the impression that it
was a murdered man lying before me. A good-looking, middle-aged female
was extended just beyond, her long hair hanging down over the end of the
table, but not as yet touched by the hand of the surgeon; while, just
beyond her, the body of an old man, from which the upper part of the
skull had been sawn to take out the brain, appeared to be grinning at us
with a horrid sort of mirth. In another part of the room, directly over
which the blackening body of an infant was thrown across a beam, like a
piece of an old carpet, was extended the body of a gigantic negro; he
lay upon his back, his legs somewhat apart, one of his arms thrown up
so as to rest upon the top of his head, his eyes wide open, his nostrils
distended, and his teeth clenched in a hideous grin. There was such
evidence of strength, such giant development of muscle, such appearance
of chained energy and ferocity about him, that, upon my soul, it seemed
to me every moment as if he was about to spring up with a frantic yell,
and throw himself upon us; and wherever I went about the room, my eyes
still involuntarily turned, expecting to see that fierce negro drawing
up his legs ready to bound, like a malignant demon, over the intervening
space. He had been brought home for murder upon the high seas, but the
jail-fever had anticipated the hand of the executioner, and his body of
course was given over to the surgeons. A far different object lay on the
floor near him; it was the body of a young girl of about eleven or twelve
years old. The poor little creature had evidently died of neglect, and
her body drawn up by the action of the flexor muscles into the form of a
bow, stiffened in death, rocked forward and backward when touched by the
foot; the sunken blue eyes staring sorrowfully and reproachfully upon us
from the emaciated features. Beyond her, in most savage contrast, was
thrown the carcass of a Bengal tiger, which had died a day or two before
in the royal menagerie, his talons extending an inch beyond his paws, and
there was about his huge distended jaws and sickly eyes, as perfect a
portraiture of disease, and pain, and agony, as it has ever been my lot
to witness in suffering humanity. There was no levity about the students,
but, on the contrary, a sort of solemnity in their examinations; and
when they spoke, it was in a low tone, as if they were apprehensive of
disturbing the dead around them. I thought at the time that it would be
well if some of those who sneer at the profession, could look in upon one
of these even minor ordeals to which its followers are subjected in their
efforts to alleviate the sufferings of their fellow-men.
As the hour for the lecture approached, the students one by one, closed
their books, washed their hands, and descended to the lecture-room.
We descended with the rest, and as we passed the grim porter, at the
bottom of the stair-case, I observed in the corner behind him a number
of stout bludgeons, besides several cutlasses and muskets. A popular
commotion a short time previous, among some of the well-intentioned but
ignorant of the lower classes, had induced the necessity of caution,
and this preparation for resistance. Entering the lecture-room, we took
our places on the third or fourth row of seats from the demonstrator’s
table, upon which a subject was lying, covered with a white sheet, and
had time, as the room gradually filled, to look about us. Besides the
students, Lee pointed out to me several able professional gentlemen,
advanced in life, who were attracted by the celebrity of the lecturer;
among others, Abernethy and Sir Astley Cooper. Shortly after we had taken
our seats, a slender, melancholy-looking young man, dressed in deep
mourning, entered the circle in which we were seated, and took his place
on the vacant bench at my side. He bowed reservedly to my companions as
he passed them, but immediately on sitting down became absorbed in deep
sadness. My friends returned his salute, but did not appear inclined
to break into his abstraction. At the precise moment that the lecture
was announced to be delivered, the tall form of the eminent surgeon was
seen descending the alley of crowded seats to his chair. The lights in
the various parts of the room were raised suddenly, throwing a glare on
all around; and one of the skeletons, to which an accidental jar had
been given, vibrated slowly forward and backward, while the other hung
perfectly motionless from its cord. In his short and sententious manner,
he opened the subject of the lecture, which was the cause, effect, and
treatment of that scourge of our country—consumption. His remarks were
singularly lucid and clear, even to me, a layman. After having gone
rapidly through the pathology of the disease, consuming perhaps some
twenty minutes of time, he said,—“We will now, gentlemen, proceed to
demonstration upon the subject itself.” I shall not readily forget the
scene that followed. As he slowly turned up the wristbands of his shirt
sleeves, and bent over to select an instrument from the case at his
side, he motioned to an assistant to withdraw the sheet that covered the
corpse. Resuming his erect position, the long knife glittering in his
hand, the sheet was slowly drawn off, exhibiting the emaciated features
of an aged woman, her white hair parted smoothly in the middle of her
forehead, passing around to the back of the head, beneath the plain white
muslin cap. The silence which always arrests even the most frivolous in
the presence of the dead, momentarily checked the busy hum of whispers
around me, when I heard a gasp—a choking—a rattling in the throat, at
my side; and the next instant, the young man sitting next to me, rose
to his feet, threw his arms wildly upwards, and shrieking in a tone of
agony, that caused every man’s heart in that assembly, momentarily to
stop—“_My m-o-t-h-e-r!_”—plunged prostrate and stiff, head foremost upon
those in front of him. All was instant consternation and confusion;—there
was one present who knew him, but to the majority of the students, he
was as much a stranger as he was to my friends. He was from one of the
adjoining parishes of London, and two weeks before, had lost his mother,
to whom he was much attached, and by fatal mischance, that mother lay
extended before him, upon the demonstrator’s table. He was immediately
raised, but entirely stiff and insensible, and carried into an adjoining
room;—sufficient animation was at length restored to enable him to
stand, but he stared vacantly about him, the great beads of sweat
trickling down his forehead, without a particle of mind or memory. The
lecture was of course closed, and the lifeless corse again entrusted to
hands to replace it in its tomb. The young man, on the following day, was
brought sufficiently to himself to have memory present the scene again to
his mind, and fell almost immediately into a raging fever, accompanied
with fierce and violent delirium; his fever gradually abated, and his
delirium at intervals; but when I left London for the continent, three
months after, he was rapidly sinking under the disease which carried off
his mother—happily in a state of helpless and senseless idiocy; and in
a very short time after, death relieved him from his misery. The whole
scene was so thrilling and painful, that, connecting it in some measure
with my introduction to Lee, his presence always recalled it to my
memory.
THE RESURRECTIONISTS.
As we returned to our lodgings, our conversation naturally turned upon
the agitating event that we had just witnessed, and the extreme caution
necessary in the procuring of subjects for anatomical examination. Lee
related an occurrence that had happened to Dr. ——, a gentleman of high
standing in South Carolina.
Shortly after the American revolution, he visited Europe for the purpose
of pursuing his medical studies, and was received into the family of
the same distinguished gentleman, whom we had just heard lecture,
then beginning to rise to eminence and notice; an advantage which was
necessarily confined to a very few. In one of the dark and stormy nights
of December, Mr. Hunter and his wife having been called to the bedside
of a dying relative in the country, as Dr. —— was quietly sitting at the
parlour fire, absorbed in his studies, he was aroused by a hurried ring
at the street door, and rising, went to answer it himself. Upon opening
the door, a hackney coach, with its half-drowned horses, presented itself
at the side of the walk, and two men, in slouched hats and heavy sailor
coals dripping with water, standing upon the steps, inquired in a low
tone if he wanted a subject. Being answered in the affirmative, they
opened the carriage door, lifted out the body, which was enveloped in a
sack, and having carried it up stairs to the dissecting-room, which was
in the garret, received the two guineas which they had demanded, and
withdrew. The affair was not unusual, and Dr. —— resuming his book, soon
forgot the transaction. About eleven o’clock, while still absorbed in
his studies, he heard a violent female shriek in the entry, and the next
instant the servant maid, dashing open the door, fell senseless upon the
carpet at his feet, the candlestick which she held, rolling some distance
as it fell.
Perceiving that the cause of alarm, whatever it might be, was without,
he caught up the candlestick, and, jumping over her prostrate form,
rushed into the hall where an object met his view which might well
have tried the nerves of the strongest man. Standing half-way down the
stair-case, was a fierce, grim-looking man, perfectly naked, his eyes
glaring wildly and fearfully from beneath a coarse shock of dark hair,
which, nearly concealing a narrow forehead, partially impeded a small
stream of blood trickling down the side of the face, from a deep scratch
in the temple. In one hand he grasped a sharp long belt-knife, such as
is used by riggers and sailors, the other holding on by the bannister,
as he somewhat bent over to meet the gaze of the Doctor rushing into the
entry. The truth flashed across the mind of Dr. —— in an instant, and
with admirable presence of mind, he made one spring, catching the man
by the wrist which held the knife, in a way that effectually prevented
his using it. “In the name of God! where am I?” demanded the man in a
horror-stricken voice, “am I to be murdered?” “Silence!—not a whisper,”
sternly answered Dr. ——, looking him steadily in the eyes—“Silence—and
your life is safe.”—Wrenching the knife from his hand, he pulled him by
the arm passively along into the yard, and hurrying through the gate,
first ran with him through one alley, then into another, and finally
rapidly through a third, till coming to an outlet upon one of the narrow
and unfrequented streets, he gave him a violent push,—retracing his steps
again on the wings of the wind, pulling too, and doubly locking the gate
behind him, leaving the object of his alarm perfectly bewildered and
perplexed, and entirely ignorant of the place from whence he had been so
summarily ejected. The precaution and presence of mind of Dr. ——, most
probably saved the house of Mr. Hunter from being torn down and sacked
by the mob, which would have been instantly collected around it, had the
aggrieved party known where to have led them to wreak his vengeance.
After a few days, inquiry was carefully and cautiously made through the
police, and it was ascertained that three men answering the description
of the resurrectionists and their victim had been drinking deeply
through the afternoon, in one of the low dens in the neighbourhood of
Wapping; that one had sunk into a stupid state of intoxication, and had,
in that situation, been stripped and placed in a sack by his companions,
a knife having been previously placed in his hand that he might relieve
himself from his confinement upon his return to sensibility; and that in
addition to the poor wretch’s clothes, they had realized the two guineas
for his body.
It is certainly painful, that the requirements of suffering humanity
should make the occasional violation of the grave indispensably
necessary. Whether the spirit, released from its confinement, lies in the
limbo of the fathers, the purgatory of the Catholics, awaiting the great
day of doom; whether called from a life of virtue, all time and distance
annihilated, it sweeps free and unconstrained in heavenly delight through
the myriads and myriads of worlds, rolling in the vast sublimity of
space; whether summoned from a course of evil, it shudders in regions of
darkness and desolation, or writhes in agony amid flaming atmospheres;
or whether its germ of life remains torpid, as in the wheat taken from
the Egyptian pyramids, thousands of years existent, but apparently not
sentient, must, of course, be to us but the wild theories of imagination,
and so remain until that judgment, predicted by the holy Revelation,
shall sweep away the darkness with which, in inscrutable and awful
wisdom, the Almighty has enveloped us.
But that the spirit can look with other than indifference, if not
loathing, on the perishing exuviæ of its chrysalis existence, which, to
its retrospective gaze, presents little other than a tasking house of
base necessities, a chained prison of cruel disappointments, even to our
human reason, clogged as it is with bars and contradictions, appears
hardly to admit the opportunity of question, and of consequence to that
spirit its disposition can but be a matter of indifference. Still, to
the surviving friends, whose affection cannot separate mind from matter,
those forms lying in the still and silent tomb, retain all their dear
associations, and surely it most gravely becomes the members of that
profession, which, next to the altar, stands foremost in benevolence,
that the deepest prudence should be exercised in this gloomy rite
required by the living from the dead.
OLD KENNEDY, THE QUARTER-MASTER.
(Constitution and Guerriere.)
No. I.
The sun became more and more powerful as it ascended towards the
meridian, and was reflected with effulgent intensity from the
mirror-surface of the river. As we bent over the side and looked far down
into the deep vault reflected from above, and saw our gallant little
yacht, with her white sails and dark hull, suspended with even minute
tracery over it, we could almost imagine ourselves with the Ancient
Mariner, “in a painted ship upon a painted ocean.”—The white sandbanks
quivered and palpitated in the sultry glare, and the atmosphere of the
adjoining swamps hung over them in a light blue vapour; the deadly
miasma, their usual covering, dissipated in the fervent heat; while
the silence was unbroken, save by the occasional scream of the gull,
as it wheeled about in pursuit of its prey, or the quick alarmed cry
of the kingfisher, hastily leaving some dead branch upon the shore to
wing its way farther from the object of its terror. The black boy, in
perfect negro elysium, lay stretched fast asleep, with his arm resting
upon one of the dogs, in the blazing sun on the forecastle, while we
ourselves, reclined upon the cushions, with our refreshments before us,
indolently puffed our cigars under the awning, Old Kennedy, perched upon
the taffrail, coxswain fashion, with the tiller between his legs. While
thus enjoying ourselves, like true disciples of Epicurus, the guitar was
taken from its case in the cabin, and accompanied by the rich tones of
Walter Lee: “Here’s a health to thee, Mary,” in compliment to our kind
hostess, swept over the still surface of the river, till, dissipated in
the distance, and anon the “Wild Huntsman,” and “Here’s a health to all
good lassies,” shouted at the pitch of three deep bass voices, bounded
over the banks, penetrating the deep forest, causing the wild game to
spring from their coverts in consternation at such unusual disturbance
of its noontide stillness. “We bade dull care be gone, and daft the
time away.” Old Kennedy, seated at the tiller, his grey hair smoothed
down on one side, and almost falling into his eyes, his cheek distended
with a huge quid of tobacco, which gave an habitual drag to a mouth
whose expression indicated surly honesty and resolution, was a perfect
portrait of many an old quartermaster, still in the service; while
his scrupulously clean shirt, with its blue collar open at the neck,
discovering a rugged throat, encircled by a ring of grey hairs, and his
white canvass trowsers, as tight at the hips as they were egregiously
large at the ancles, indicated the rig in which he had turned up, for the
last thirty years, to Sunday muster. The old seaman had seen a great deal
of service, having entered the navy at the opening of the difficulties
with the Barbary powers, and had been engaged in several of the signal
naval actions which followed in the subsequent war with Great Britain.
Previous to that time, he had been in the employ of Tom’s father, who was
an extensive shipping merchant at Alexandria, and now, in his old age,
influenced by an attachment for the son, who had built a snug cottage for
him on his estate, and, vested with the full control of the yacht, he had
been induced to come down to spend the remainder of his days on the banks
of the Potomac, enjoying the pension awarded by government for the loss
of his arm.
I had previously had the hint given me, that a little adroit management
would set him to spinning a yarn which would suit my fancy. So, watching
a good opportunity, knowing that the old man had been with Hull in his
fight with the Guerriere, I successfully gave a kick to the ball by
remarking, “You felt rather uncomfortable, Kennedy, did you not, as
you were bearing down on the Guerriere, taking broadside and broadside
from her, without returning a shot. You had time to think of your sins,
my good fellow, as conscience had you at the gangway?” “Well, sir,”
replied he, deliberately rolling his tobacco from one side of his mouth
to the other, squirting the juice through his front teeth with true
nautical grace—“Well, sir, that ere was the first frigate action as ever
I was engaged in, and I am free to confess, I overhauled the log of my
conscience to see how it stood, so it mought be I was called to muster
in the other world in a hurry; but I don’t think any of his shipmates
will say that Old Bill Kennedy did his duty any the worse that day,
because he thought of his God, as he has many a time since at quarters.
There’s them as says the chaplain is paid for the religion of the ship,
and it’s none of the sailor’s business; but I never seen no harm in
an honest seaman’s thinking for himself. Howsomever, I don’t know the
man who can stand by his gun at such time, tackle cast loose, decks
sanded, matches lighted, arm-chests thrown open, yards slung, marines
in the gangways, powder-boys passing ammunition buckets, ship as still
as death, officers in their iron-bound boarding caps, cutlashes hanging
by lanyards at their wrists, standing like statues at divisions, enemy
may-be bearing down on the weather-quarter—I say, I doesn’t know the man
at sich time, as won’t take a fresh bite of his quid, and give a hitch to
the waistbands of his trowsers, as he takes a squint at the enemy through
the port as he bears down. And as you say at that particular time, the
Guerriere (as is French for soger) was wearing and manœuvering, and
throwing her old iron into us, broadside and broadside, like as I have
seen them Italians in Naples throw sugar-plums at each other in Carnival
time.—Afore she was through, tho’, she found it was no sugar-plum work,
so far as Old Ironsides was consarned. You obsarve, when we first made
her out, we seen she was a large ship close hauled on the starboard
tack; so we gave chase, and when within three miles of her, took in all
our light sails, hauled courses up, beat to quarters and got ready for
action. She wore and manœuvered for some time, endeavouring to rake, but
not making it out, bore up under her jib, and topsails, and gallantly
waited for us. Well, sir—as we walked down to her, there stands the old
man, (Hull) his swabs on his shoulders, dressed as fine in his yellow
nankin vest and breeches, as if he was going ashore on leave—there he
stands, one leg inside the hammock nettings, taking snuff out of his
vest pocket, watching her manœuvres, as she blazed away like a house
a-fire, just as cool as if he was only receiving complimentary salutes.
She burnt her brimstone, and was noisy—but never a gun fires we. Old
Ironsides poked her nose steady right down for her, carrying a bank of
foam under her bows like a feather-bed cast loose. Well, as we neared
her, and she wears first a-star-board, and then a-larboard, giving us a
regular broadside at every tack, her shot first falls short, but as we
shortened the distance, some of them begins to come aboard—first among
the rigging, and cuts away some of the stuff aloft, for them Englishmen
didn’t larn to fire low till we larnt ’em. First they comes in aloft,
but by-and-by, in comes one—lower—crash—through the bulwarks, making the
splinters fly like carpenter’s chips,—then another, taking a gouge out
of the main-mast; and pretty soon agin—‘_chit_’—I recollects the sound
of that ere shot well—‘chit’—another dashed past my ear, and glancing on
a gun-carriage, trips up the heels of three as good men as ever walked
the decks of that ere ship; and all this while, never a gun fires we; but
continues steadily eating our way right down on to his quarter, the old
man standing in the hammock nettings, watching her movements as if she
was merely playing for his amusement. Well, as we came within carronade
distance, them shot was coming on board rather faster than mere fun,
and some of the young sailors begins to grumble, and by-and-by, the old
men-of-wars-men growled too, and worked rusty—cause why—they sees the
enemy’s mischief, and nothing done by us to aggravate them in return.
Says Bill Vinton, the vent-holder, to me, ‘I say, Kennedy,’ says he,
‘what’s the use—if this here’s the way they fights frigates, dam’me! but
I’d rather be at it with the Turks agin, on their own decks as we was
at Tripoli. It’s like a Dutch bargain—all on one side. I expects the
next thing, they’ll order pipe down, and man the side-ropes for that ere
Englishman to come aboard and call the muster-roll.’ ‘Avast a bit,’ says
I; ‘never you fear the old man. No English press-gang comes on board this
ship—old Blow-hard knows what he’s about.’
“Well, by-and-by Mr. Morris, our first lieutenant, who all the while had
been walking up and down the quarter-deck, his trumpet under his arm, and
his eyes glistening like a school-boy’s just let out to play; by-and-by
_he_ begins to look sour, ’ticularly when he sees his favourite coxswain
of the first cutter carried by a shot through the opposite port. So he
first looks hard at the Old Man, and then walks up to him, and says by
way of a hint, in a low tone, ‘The ship is ready for action, sir, and
the men are getting impatient;’—the Old Man never turns, but keeps his
eye steadily on the enemy, while he replies, ‘Are—you—all ready, Mr.
Morris?’—‘All ready, sir,’—says the lieutenant—‘Don’t fire a gun till
I give the orders, Mr. Morris,’—says the old man. Presently up comes
a midshipman from the main-deck, touches his hat—‘First division all
ready, sir,—the second lieutenant reports the enemy’s shot have hurt
his men, and he can with difficulty restrain them from returning their
fire;’—‘Tell him to wait for orders, Mr. Morris,’ says the old man
again—never turning his head. Well—just, you see, as the young gentleman
turned to go below, and another shot carries off Mr. Bush, lieutenant
of marines—just as we begins to run into their smoke, and even the old
gun-boat men, as had been with Decatur and Somers, begins to stare, up
jumps the old man in the air, slaps his hand on his thigh with a report
like a pistol, and roars out in a voice that reached the gunners in the
magazines—‘Now, Mr. Morris, give it to them,—now give it to them—fore
and aft—round and grape—give it to ’em, sir—give it to ’em,’ and the
words was scarce out of his mouth, before our whole broadside glanced
at half pistol shot—the old ship trembling from her keel to her trucks,
like an aspen, at the roar of her own batteries—instantly shooting ahead
and doubling across his bows, we gave him the other with three cheers,
and then at it we went—regular hammer and tongs. You would a thought
you were in a thunder storm in the tropics, from the continual roar
and flash of the batteries. In ten minutes, his mizen-mast went by the
board. ‘Hurrah!’ shouts the old man; ‘hurrah, boys, we’ve made a brig of
her.—Fire low, never mind their top hamper! hurrah! we’ll make a sloop
of her before we’ve done.’ In ten minutes more over went her main-mast,
carrying twenty men overboard as it went; and sure enough, sir, in thirty
minutes, that ere Englishman was a sheer hulk, smooth as a canoe, not a
spar standing but his bowsprit; and his decks so completely swept by our
grape and cannister, that there was barely hands enough left to haul down
the colours, as they had bravely nailed to the stump of their main-mast.
‘I say, Kennedy,’ says the vent-holder to me, lying across the gun after
she struck, looking out at the wrack through the port, and his nose was
as black as a nigger’s from the powder flashing under it—‘I say, I wonder
how that ere Englishman likes the smell of the old man’s snuff.’”
OLD KENNEDY, THE QUARTER-MASTER
(Sailors Ashore.—Hornet and Peacock.)
No. II.